Right now the name Robin Everhart may not be one that immediately springs to mind when discussing world class musicians.  Now this may be genuinely because you've never heard of him before (and shame on you if you haven't), it is however more likely due to the fact that Robin is one of four such musicians that go to make up Los Angeles hard rockers Rival Sons, so when you are discussing such things as world class musicians you simply mention THE BAND.

We certainly mention Rival Sons a lot here at URHQ, having charted their rise from a show at Camden Barfly just over a year ago through to their current ongoing trek through European concert halls with Black Stone Cherry and others.  Their rise through the ranks has been nothing short of meteoric, and quite rightly so if you ask me, as they are not only world class musicians, but have produced hell of a world class debut album in 'Pressure & Time'.

I last caught up with the Rival Sons at the band's headline show in London's Borderline club where I got to share a few words with singer Jay Buchanan, for tonight's chat in the more opulent surroundings of the HMV Forum in Kentish Town it was the turn of the Sons' enigmatic titfer wearing bass player Robin Everhart to face my questions, and where better to start than with how do the band follow up such a world class album as 'Pressure & Time'.....

Hi Robin, many thanks for taking the time to talk with me today, first off, how's the new album coming along?

RE: We've finished recording, and basically we've flown straight here, so we haven't heard much of it! It's being mixed right now, so it's going good.

So where did you record it?

We flew to Nashville, lived in a house together for a month and did it in the same 20 days.

Did you do it with the same producer as 'Pressure & Time' (Dave Cobb)?

Yep, same producer. He moved to Nashville, so he made us travel to him.

So you've flown over here just for the Black Stone Cherry tour?

Yep, but after tonight we break off to do some headline dates around Europe.

Can you tell us how the new album sounds?

It's an extension of ourselves, and it's a moment captured in time. Besides the formula of going in, writing the songs, and recording them that day, there's nothing formulaic about it. There's no 'Pressure & Time' on the album. It's not like we "stole another Zeppelin lick", took out some notes and made it sound better (laughs), we didn't do that! We just went in every day with an open mind, so it's a real clear picture of where we were at.

So you went in, wrote the songs there, and recorded them straight away?!!

Uh-huh, with lots of fighting in between! (laughs)

So how quickly do you get a song together in order to get it to the recording standard?

We normally came in at eleven or twelve. With 'Pressure & Time' we normally came in at one or two, but coming in at eleven didn't really do much as we never got around to playing instruments till one or two anyway! We'd begin at one or two and we'd have a song real close to go by dinnertime. Sometimes we'd do takes leading up to dinner time, and if we didn't get em, we'd go to dinner, come back and record them and that would be the take pretty much, generally. By nine o'clock, we'd have pretty much the entire song.

And what does Jay do about the lyrics?

He is in the room writing with us all at the same time. Some days with some tunes, he'd have the spark instantly, and totally got where it was going. And then would break off, and go write some words and come back in and sometimes he'd track it with us. There are a couple of songs where he wrote and we put it all down at the same time. Other days, he's in there still and it's just not as clear that day, and he'd just sit on that for a minute, and we'd get the music right and Jay has that to right to.

You've recorded it, but it's still got to be mixed. Any ideas on titles or release dates yet?

Release date yes - end of summer.

And still on Earache?

Yes, another one with them, they did so good for us.

The last time I spoke to you guys it was at the Borderline in London, and you were about to go on tour with Judas Priest. How did you go down with the Judas Priest fans?

Way better than we ever would have thought. We were fully prepared to get bottles of piss thrown at us and people shouting "'fucking wankers, get off the stage!" There was one night where there was a heckler, but it turned out he was just chopping shit up, having fun and wanting to get loud so that was cool. But no, we went over really well.

Perhaps one of the highlights for you may have been the High Voltage festival where you got called on at the last minute to play a second set headlining the Metal Hammer stage, in place of Electric Wizard?

I do remember that. Right after we finished our half hour set on the main stage, where the decibel levels were so low. They were like "do you want to play again?" and we were like "yeah! But what happened?" When they told us we we're like "oh no!" We love Electric Wizard and were really looking forward to seeing them. But we couldn't say no, it was great. We got to play a long set, we got to stretch out, it felt really good to play a long set because we were in the midst of all those Priest dates where we also only got a half hour, as we were the first of three. We got to jam out, and play some other songs too.

And what festivals do you have here in the summer?

We've just confirmed Download and I think we're on on Sunday? So hopefully all the guys can get their act together and play this festival - please Ozzy, Tony, Geezer if you're listening!

Talking of those Sabbath guys what were your personal influences growing up?

I grew up on Motown. My Dad was way into the Motown sound, Marvin Gaye and the Temptations, Four Tops, Stevie Wonder. And also he was a jazz drummer, so I was listening to Joe Morello, Henry Mancini even, my mum liked a lot of show tunes and jazz. So that was really where I came from and from that I sprang into funk - James Brown, and from that I got into fusion.

Finally then, back to the new album. You mentioned that you're not going to be ripping another Zeppelin lick off, and there was a clear Zeppelin influence on the 'Rival Sons' EP, but for me the 'Pressure & Time' album was almost 'pre-Zeppelin' with a very sixties and souly vibe going on. Is that the vibe with the new album too?

No, it's 'pre pre' - it's fifties! And there's some very 2012 moments on it too. It's a little bipartisan right now, I'm not sure how it's coming together. It's expansive from what I remember of it. The album order is going to be a big old fight, I can already see it. A lot of hissy fits are about to get thrown! But important hissy fits, which I guess doesn't make them hissy fits at all.

Robin thank you so much for taking the time to talk with Uber Rock we'd like to wish you all the best with the new album whatever it might be called and, of course your upcoming tour dates. Oh and have a great show tonight.

Thanks guys.

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